1

2

8

9

15

16

22

23

29

30

From CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, a special issue on Asian culture(s) and globalization. Claudio Sopranzetti (Harvard): The Owners of the Map: Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, Mobility, and Politics in Bangkok (Dissertation). Lorenzo Pellegrini and Luca Tasciotti (Erasmus): Bhutan: Between Happiness and Horror. The AIDS granny in exile: In the ’90s, a gynecologist named Gao Yaojie exposed the horrifying cause of an AIDS epidemic in rural China — and the ensuing cover-up — and became an enemy of the state. “Once the villages are gone, the culture is gone”: As village life in China disappears and its traditions fade, some fight to maintain the country’s rural cultural heritage. China's Dan Brown is a subtle subversive: Jiayang Fan on how the writer who goes by the pen name Mai Jia is the most popular author in the world you’ve never heard of. Chinese atheists?: Ian Johnson on what the Pew survey gets wrong. Pearl Sydenstricker on the Disneyfication of Tibet: How tourism has become a tool of occupation. The introduction to Regionalizing Culture: The Political Economy of Japanese Popular Culture in Asia by Nissim Kadosh Otmazgin. Emily Shire on what Orgasm Wars reveals about Japan's sexual culture. Racy men’s magazine in South Korea enflames nationalist anger. Alicia Izharuddin on the geography of urban intellectual culture in the Malay archipelago. Ulises Moreno-Tabarez reviewsPopular Culture in Asia: Memory, City, Celebrity by Lorna Fitzsimmons and John A. Lent. The Asian Century may have arrived, but many Asians — disproportionately entrepreneurial, well-educated and familial — are heading elsewhere. Why are we so reluctant, even in this age of globalization, to adopt Asian key terminologies?

Gabriel Garcia-Merritt (Iowa State): Inked Lives: Tattoos, Identity, and Power. Richard Waters reviewsThe Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism by Jeremy Rifkin. Read this one document to understand what the Christian Right hopes to gain from Hobby Lobby. Felix Salmon on why it makes sense for Larry Page to donate his billions to Elon Musk. Andrew O’Hehir on why we fight about Colbert and Lena Dunham: Twitter politics are all we have left. Marcella Bombardieri on the inside story of MIT and Aaron Swartz: More than a year after Swartz killed himself rather than face prosecution, questions about MIT’s handling of the hacking case persist. Adam K. Raymond on the 5 stages of Bitcoin grief. Reddit CEO Yishan Wong says “The userbase for bitcoin is basically crazy libertarians”. Rand Paul doesn't stand a chance: Michael Kazin on libertarians and the Republican Party. New G.O.P. bid to limit voting in swing states: Already, nine states, under Republican control, have passed measures making it harder to vote since the beginning of 2013. An interview with Michio Kaku, author of The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, on exploring the universe via avatars, the probable intelligence of aliens, and uploading memories back into the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Mexico’s cowboy pilgrims: Rural values endure in an industrial heartland.